Ricardo Caté Quotes

I like to think that this is a universal cartoon in which the characters just happen to be Native.

We have to have optimism about the future. Sometimes it seems bleak and I hear a lot of comments about what kind of world we’re leaving the kids...We can fix all that. We can make it better. I’m very optimistic.

I’ve been tweaking it for the last 13 years...Back then I did a lot of inside jokes where only Natives would get it. People would constantly tell me, “I didn’t get yesterday’s cartoon.” And I would simply say, “Well, that’s okay, because I don't get the cartoons in The New Yorker sometimes.” But then I thought about it, and I thought that's not a very good answer. As an artist I shouldn’t be offended that people don't get it. I should be improving myself so more people get it. So about five years ago I grew up and stopped thinking like that and I thought, “Okay, let's get to work, let’s see what I can do to tweak this so more people can understand it.” Because ultimately that's my goal, to get more non-Natives to read it so I can put these Native issues on the table and then go from there.

It’s all we can do. Otherwise we’ll go crazy. It’s a really good time [for creativity]. People will probably look back on these few months and say these Americans were pretty creative during this virus. Some artists are using it to their advantage: making videos and coming up with songs. As a cartoonist, I'm simply on that train.

(Are there many other Native American cartoonists?) There are tons, but the thing is they’re drawing for their respective tribal newspapers. I’m the only one that I know of with a daily cartoon in a mainstream newspaper.

I grew up in the 70s when Mad was huge, especially for us nerds. Mad was just big at the time and I was in grade school seeing humor for the first time that wasn’t Native humor. Don Martin was my favorite cartoonist at the time and he was just a big influence. The way he drew the cartoons and the sounds were just hilarious. Around that same time was Andy Capp. He also had the big nose and you couldn’t see his eyes. I always thought that was pretty cool. You could still get the point across, you could still get his emotions even without using the eyes. I saw that as a challenge, so in 2010, I took the eyes off my characters.

It’s planting seeds. That’s all we can do as teachers—plant the seeds through knowledge, through art, through wisdom, and through our actions.

Sometimes I get letters from non-Natives who have called me racist and insensitive to Natives untl they realize that I am Native myself. Non-Natives often walk up to me and say, "I didn't get the cartoon today," and I reply, "That's ok, I don't get the cartoons in The New Yorker either."

My panels are simple. I get to do that. People say, It’s badly drawn. I say, Well, I’m not making an effort to make it great. The thing is the message, not the drawing. And then they said, Well, if you drew a little better, maybe you would get considered for the Pulitzer Prize. Okay. Maybe I’ll work on it.